Doctor K's African Safari

It began as a journey of small expectations and doubtful timing, but midway through his first visit to Africa last week Secretary of State Henry Kissinger appeared to have promised a significant turnaround in U.S. foreign policy on the continent. Initially, the signs on the horizon were anything but auspicious. Only two months after the end of a bloody civil war in Angola, Rhodesia was already caught up in the first skirmishes of a racial showdown as black liberation movements geared up to bring down the white racist regime of Ian Smith. Such was the perceived failure of American policy over the years to provide any semblance of support for black African aspirations that three countries Kissinger hoped to visit--Mozambique, Nigeria and Ghana--refused to have him.

Even the trip, at the outset, seemed plagued by snafus. A Kissinger statement on a stopover in London hinting at "indirect military aid" to the Rhodesian rebels was misinterpreted, and the White House promptly shot it down, suggesting--falsely as it turned out --that there might be policy differences on Africa between Kissinger and President Ford. Next the State Department sent out photographic slides of five African leaders to television stations; three were labeled with wrong names.

Then there was Kissinger's visit to Victoria Falls. Walking out onto the railway bridge that spans the gorge below the spectacular cataract and straddles the borders of Zambia and Rhodesia, the Secretary stepped across a white line onto Rhodesian territory, then quipped, "At least now I know what the issues look like." The gesture, coming on the heels of a blast at Kissinger from Rhodesia's Ian Smith for not visiting Salisbury before criticizing his government, took on a slightly surreal quality when it turned out that it had all been prearranged two weeks before by Washington so that Rhodesian security guards would not fire on the Secretary when he stepped across the line.

For all the pitfalls and pratfalls, Kissinger had come to Africa to announce, for the first time, a coherent and far-reaching American policy in the region. In a major policy speech, which he delivered in Lusaka, following a series of friendly talks with Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, Kissinger forcefully aligned the U.S. with the proponents of black majority rule and against the white regimes of southern Africa. The U.S., he said, is "wholly committed to help bring about a rapid, just and African solution" in Rhodesia (which Kissinger pointedly referred to by its African name, Zimbabwe). At the same time, Kissinger called for South Africa to fix a definite timetable for self-rule in Namibia (South West Africa), the former German colony administered by Pretoria. As for South Africa, he said the U.S. will insist on an end to apartheid and "the institutionalized separation of the races."

Psychological Boost. By far the greater part of his speech was given over to the growing crisis in the breakaway British colony of Rhodesia. In a ten-point program that will form the basis for what Kissinger called "unrelenting opposition" to Salisbury, he put Washington squarely behind British Prime Minister James Callaghan's March 22 proposal for majority rule in Rhodesia within two years. Blacks presently outnumber whites in the country, 6.1 million to 278,000, but have no effective voice in the government.

Other key Kissinger points: 1) the Administration will seek repeal of the Byrd amendment, enacted in 1971, which allows American companies to import Rhodesian chrome in violation of U.N.-imposed sanctions; 2) Washington will try to enlist other countries, notably South Africa and France, in a program of strict compliance with the sanctions, especially on arms; 3) American citizens in Rhodesia--some 900 --will be urged to leave; 4) the U.S. will give Mozambique $12.5 million in aid to help make up for losses suffered from its border closing with Rhodesia, and supply assistance to some 17,000 black Rhodesian refugees in Mozambique.

To both black African and senior diplomats on the continent, the Secretary's main achievement was that he had forcefully served notice that Washington intended to play an active role in helping to achieve majority rule in southern Africa. As one Kissinger aide said: "It's the first time in a long time that we are doing the moral thing." The reaction in black Africa was cautiously favorable. Tanzania's government-controlled Daily News saw the Lusaka speech as a "psychological boost"; Zambian President Kaunda praised it as "an important turning point."

The greatest fears were that it might already be too late to find a political solution to Africa's problems, given the momentum of the guerrilla buildup against Rhodesia. Nyerere had warned even before Kissinger's speech that "the war has already begun." Echoing that sentiment, Kaunda urged that Kissinger's program be "worked upon as quickly as possible, because in terms of time we do not have it." In response, Kissinger made it clear that the U.S. would be glad to act as a mediator in negotiations between black liberationists and the Rhodesian government.

Next Step. Nonetheless, the U.S. has a long way to go to overcome the residue of skepticism left from years of neglect of Africa. Africans have not forgotten Secretary of State William Rogers' trip to the continent in 1970, when he pledged a "new interest" in black Africa. A National Security Council memo leaked in 1974 revealed that Kissinger had at that very time instituted a policy of "selective relaxation" toward white-minority regimes--and a policy of benign neglect toward black Africa.

After stops in Zaire (where he came down with a stomach ache after feasting on wild boar and manioc leaves), Liberia and Senegal, Kissinger returns this week to Nairobi for the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. There he will announce formation of an International Resources Bank to finance development of raw materials. Earlier, Kissinger pledged $200 million to the International Fund for Economic Development.

Africa will be watching to see whether Kissinger's pledges really represent a permanent U.S. policy commitment. The first test will be repeal of the Byrd amendment. The Administration has previously called for repeal, but has never worked very hard for it on Capitol Hill. After Kissinger's Lusaka address, California's Senator John Tunney promptly introduced a joint resolution for repeal. Kissinger, said Tunney, "took a step in the right direction in calling for repeal. It is now up to us in the Congress to take the next step."

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